I’d never once thought it would turn out to be anything more for Jo than a stepping-stone to a new life.
But they’d sparked off each other. I’d seen it. There’d been something building.
And I’d killed her.
“What’s up?” I said briskly. “I was just about to head out,” I lied.
“Hear about Jo?”
I nodded. Cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry, Lor.” In more ways than he knew.
“I had plans for that one,” he murmured. “Ah, did I ever. Crazy bitch. Thought she didn’t wanna fuck me, and anybody could see plain as day she loved fucking me.”
Yep. Twist that knife.
He stared at me a long, unreadable moment. Finally he said, “I can’t talk to those fucks about her. Can’t talk to anybody. Figured you’d listen ’cause you were friends with her. Hell, you’re the one sent the little spitfire to me.”
And I was endlessly sorry I had.
“I got a rule, see. Never fuck a brunette. Know why?”
Nope, but I could see he was going to tell me. I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. All I could see was me shattering Jo’s skull. Eating her. I thrust the images away. There was danger here. The Nine were far too capable of skimming minds.
“I had a wife once. Long time ago.”
Let me guess. She was a brunette. “You know,” I said quickly, “I’m not supposed to know about any of this, remember? What would Ryodan do if he heard you were talking to me?”
“Fuck Ryodan. Bastard had her longer than I did.” His face darkened and all trace of playful, caveman Lor vanished, leaving the hard-planed visage of a virtual stranger.
I realized I was seeing the real Lor for the first time. Brutal, cold, every bit as much a beast as the rest of them. Bonecrusher. The word floated into my mind but I had no idea why.
“You got any fucking clue what it’s like to outlive everyone? At first you think it’s the greatest goddamn party you coulda been invited to. You fuck and feast and do every goddamn thing you want and think you got the world by the balls. Then you realize every bloody person you like hanging with is gonna die. You know how many musicians I watched go before they even hit thirty? And the women, shit. How many times can you care? How long till you start to hate? Despise. Motherfucking revile.”
His eyes bored into mine and I inhaled shallowly. A series of disjointed images flashed through my mind, and I knew he was feeding them to me. Once, Lor had been a completely different man. The worst of them. The Bonecrusher. He’d befriended Genghis Khan and run with the Mongols, he’d warred with Attila the Hun, slaughtered with Caligula, rampaged with Nero, laughed with Ivan the Terrible, been executioner for Robespierre, drank blood from the skulls of their enemies with Vlad the Impaler. For a thousand years he’d sought war after war, killing endlessly. He’d abjured his own clan, until one night they’d shown up in force, led by Ryodan, captured him and dragged him away.
“You fucks’d call it an intervention,” he said with cold, dead eyes.
“You loved Jo,” I whispered.
“Nope,” he said succinctly. “But the woman made me sorta start to feel like maybe I would put up with that shit again, watch her grow old, die, deal with it. And now she’s fucking gone.”
Of all the people I could have killed, it had to be Jo. “Why are you telling me this?”
“She’s already been forgotten. So much going on, nobody’s even talking about her anymore. By the time we got back, she’d been dead for over a month. I just heard. The scraps of her body got dumped in a grave. Gonna go dig ’em up, sniff out the Unseelie that did it. Torture that fuck to death a hundred different ways.”
A chill went up my spine. “You could do that? Smell who killed her from her remains?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s easy shit. I dropped by to let you know. Seeing as you’re Fae queen and all, letting you know there’s gonna be a fuck lot of Unseelie dying tonight. Not just the one that did it. I’m gonna take down the whole caste, every goddamn last one.”
I swallowed. “And you came for my blessing?”
He got to his feet and stalked for the door, tossing over his shoulder, “Nope. Telling ya to stay the fuck outta my way tonight. I’ll take your ass down, too, if you get in it.”
The door banged shut behind him.
I sat unmoving for a moment, allowing myself to wallow in shame and grief and regret and pain, meeting it measure for measure.
Then I stepped away from crushing emotion and played out scenarios, isolating the likely one: Lor finds Jo’s remains, smells that I killed her, kills me, the song can never be sung, the Earth gets destroyed.
All because I killed Jo.
Barrons had once killed a Fae princess. No doubt Lor could kill a queen. Especially a new, young one.
He was going to have to wait to kill me until after we saved the world.
It occurred to me, as I pulled out my cellphone, that my decision might seem every bit as cold and ruthless to the casual observer as the things Barrons and Ryodan often did. Covering my ass. Deceitful, even.
My fingers flew over the letters: